Russian apartment bombings

The Russian apartment bombings occurred between 4 and 16 September 1999 when 293 people were killed and over 1,000 wounded in a series of FSB false flag bombings in the Russian cities of Buynaksk, Moscow, and Volgodonsk. The Russian government of Vladimir Putin accused Chechen separatists of being behind the bombings, specifically blaming Islamist warlords Ibn al-Khattab and Abu Omar al-Saif. However, the State Duma speaker announced the Volgodonsk bombing three days before it happened, the prime suspect told the police that he was being set up by the FSB, and, when a bomb was found and defused in Ryazan on 22 September, local police arrested the perpetrators 36 hours later but released them when they were found to have been FSB agents; the Russian government claimed that their arrests had been a training exercise. Nevertheless, Putin's handling of the crisis boosted his popularity, and he took advantage of the wave of fear to launch the Second Chechen War. Later that year, he was elected President after Boris Yeltsin resigned.